Flight Unlimited

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Description

Flight Unlimited is a civilian flight simulator. You can choose between an Extra 300s, a Bellanca Decathlon, a Sukhoi SU-31, a Pitts S-2B and a Grob S-103. Take part in aerobatic competitions or, if you're a beginner, learn how to fly in 34 lessons.

Flight Unlimited stresses reality: All ground textures and elevations are based on real satellite photodata, and the flight model has a heavy basis in real world physics. The manual is quite detailed, and combined with the in-flight tutorials, the user is provided with a very gradual introduction to flying.

A very comprehensive piece of work, and a defining title for Looking Glass, whose only competition at the time was Microsoft Flight Simulator (which look immediately dated compared side by side to Flight Unlimited).

Screenshots

Promo Images

Trailer

Part of the Following Groups

• Aircraft: Civilian
• Flight Unlimited series

User Reviews

Ground-breaking and gorgeous, though not without its limitations.	DOS	SiliconClassics (866)
One of the best sims ever!	DOS	Henning Haraldsen (3)

Critic Reviews

Computer Gaming World (CGW)	DOS	Sep, 1995		100
Joystick (French)	DOS	Apr, 1995	92 out of 100	92
PC Gamer	DOS	Sep, 1995	91 out of 100	91
Mac Ledge	Macintosh	1996	9.1 out of 10	91
PC Joker	DOS	Jun, 1995	87 out of 100	87
Gameplay (Benelux)	DOS	Aug, 1995	87 out of 100	87
Play Time	DOS	Jun, 1995	84 out of 100	84
PC Player (Germany)	DOS	May, 1995	84 out of 100	84
macHOME	Macintosh	1997		80
Score	DOS	Jul, 1995	8 out of 10	80

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Trivia

Credits

Viewing the credits for the game brings up a neat tiltable "plate" where gelatinous cubes fall down one by one and bounce on it; each cube bears the face of one of the programmers. Like the game, this section is also based on real-world physics, as cubes bounce, wobble, bend, and deform as they hit the plate. The user can even tilt the plate to alter the strike, bounce, and roll of the cubes!

Error message

When a fatal error occurs, the following message is displayed above the register dump:

Someday you will ache like I ache.

Graphics

The graphics engine for Flight Unlimited was designed with the future in mind. Most graphics cards back then might have been able to hit 1024x768 if they were lucky, but the game was designed to output even higher than that. It even supported old VR helmets.

Technology

The DOS version of this game does not interact with it's 32-bit DOS extender very well; it makes the game unstable, and also makes it nearly impossible to capture screenshots from it.

Awards

• Computer Gaming World
  • June 1996 (Issue #143) – Special Artistic Achievement Award for Physical Model
  • November 1996 (15th anniversary issue) – #5 Best Way To Die In Computer Gaming (plane crashes with the physics model)
• GameStar (Germany)
  • Issue 12/1999 - #97 in the "100 Most Important PC Games of the Nineties" ranking

Information also contributed by Adam Baratz

Related Web Sites

• Flight Unlimited (official website)