MICROSOFT FLIGHT SIMULATOR 2024 REVIEW: WHEN CLOUD GAMING BECOMES CLOUD SCREAMING
Ever wondered what it would feel like if Microsoft took everything that worked in MSFS 2020, threw it in a blender with some new features, and then served it through servers made of wet cardboard? Well, buckle up buttercr- just kidding, you can't buckle up because the textures haven't loaded yet.
WELCOME TO THE QUEUE SIMULATOR
First impressions? There aren't any, because most players spent their first day staring at loading screens like they were modern art installations. Microsoft, one of the largest tech companies in the world, somehow forgot that people might actually want to play their game on launch day. It's like they used Windows Vista's networking team to handle the server infrastructure.
THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE LOADING...
When you finally get in (assuming the planets align and your internet connection isn't having an existential crisis), you'll find some genuinely impressive improvements. The visuals are prettier than ever – when they actually load. The new career mode could be fantastic – if it wasn't buggier than a tropical rainforest. And the new EFB? Well, it's like having a fancy iPad that sometimes thinks it's a potato.
WHO NEEDS OFFLINE PLAY ANYWAY?
The crown jewel of questionable decisions has to be the always-online, stream-everything approach. Got gigabit internet? Cool, you'll still watch textures load slower than a sloth running a marathon. Got anything less? Well, hope you enjoy flying through what looks like an impressionist painting of Earth. Even the cockpit buttons play hide and seek with their textures, turning simple flights into a fun game of "guess which blurry white rectangle does what."
CAREER MODE OR ERROR MODE?
The new career mode could have been the simulator's killer feature. Instead, it's just killing people's patience. You'll get penalized for phantom speed violations while stationary, face off against invisible objectives, and experience more random crashes than a student pilot's first solo flight. It's like they QA tested it by showing the code to a cat and asking "does this look good to you?"
PERFORMANCE ANXIETY
Remember when games just... worked? MSFS 2024 doesn't. The game demands more resources than a crypto mining rig but delivers performance that would make a PowerPoint presentation look smooth. And that's assuming you can get past the loading screens, which have become so notorious they're practically a game mode of their own.
CONCLUSION
Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 is like that overambitious pilot who tries to land in severe weather conditions – sometimes it works out brilliantly, but most of the time you're just waiting for disaster. The foundation for something spectacular is here, but it's buried under server issues, bugs, and questionable design decisions.
Sure, in six months, this might be the definitive flight simulation experience. But right now? It's about as ready for release as a paper airplane in a hurricane. The improved graphics and new features are great when they work, but that's a bigger "when" than your typical airport delay.
Score: 5/10 - Like a beautiful aircraft with no landing gear: impressive to look at, but the landing's going to hurt.