Flight Unlimited is yet another flight simulation game. It came out in 1995 for DOS (1996 for Windows 95) and was created by Looking Glass Studios. This one, however, seems to be a little better than some of the other ones that came out around the same time. As with most flight simulation games, if you have a joystick, it does make it easier to play rather than trying to fly an airplane with the keyboard controls. A joystick just gives you better handling and control on things like this.
It was one of the first games in its day to use 3D elevation mesh with images that were photo realistic to create landscapes and terrains that were so real looking it was like you were actually there.
In this game you get to choose between five different planes to fly. You can choose from the Bellanca Decathlon, Extra 300, Pitts Special S-2B, Grob Sailplane G-103A Twin II Acro, and the Sukhoi Su-31. You have thirty interactive flight lessons to choose to go do if you want to or you can choose from the over fifty aerial obstacle courses. If you just choose to go fly one of the planes for fun, you can choose to start from the taxi way, runway, or already
in the air. In most of the planes you get the five basic flight instruments. They are the altimeter, the air speed indicator, the vertical speed indicator, the engine RPM, and the G-units gauge. Nope, no fuel gauge.
This game was also the first in its time to use great physics in a home based flight simulation game. It was the first to use what they call fluid dynamics. They made it where instead of the control inputs from the keyboard or joystick directly affecting the aircraft, the controls just affect different surfaces on your airplane. So if you pushed the joystick forward on an older game, it would make the plane go straight down whereas with fluid dynamics, pushing forward on the keyboard or joystick just tilts the elevators, and so then the flow of air is what will adjust the planes direction accordingly. In plain old fashioned English, the way they designed the game and game controls makes it easier to play and properly fly the airplanes because you have much better control. In the older games, you did not have this much control over the airplane, ultimately causing many crashes, lost time, and frustrating game play.
For a game of its time though, the graphics were pretty cool. Especially the way they were able to create the landscapes and terrain to make it so real looking.
