Shuttle: The Space Flight Simulator

The Good
Overall realism; flight model, the variety of missions, graphics and the great manual.

The Bad
Sounds & the steep learning curve.

The Bottom Line
One of the most difficult games I have ever played, this game is definitely not for beginners. Because of the great number of different controls and panels, you will probably need to have the manual around every now and then, if you have not received astronaut training. Flight model is probably very realistic: the shuttle is extremely difficult to handle, particularly during landings. It has very limited manoeuvrability and has an annoying tendency to stall. It can be very frustrating to crash in landing after a long game session, especially if you have not saved your game every now and then.

The game has polygon-based VGA graphics of good quality for the time it was released, but sounds are somewhat limited. It runs fine in a DOS window under Windows. This game is much better than Microsoft Space Simulator and as there is no sequel, this is a must for anyone interested in space simulators. Despite its difficulty and sometimes maddening complexity I highly recommend this game.