MS Flight coming February 29 with Hawaiian Islands pack

Microsoft has announced a release date of February 29 for Microsoft Flight, along with a Hawaiian Adventure Pack that will release day-and-date.

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Microsoft has announced that Microsoft Flight will be available to all for free on leap day, February 29, 2012. It will include the largest of the Hawaiian islands for free. If that's not enough, you'll be able to purchase the Hawaiian Adventure Pack to add the rest of the islands along with 20 missions and a new plane, the Vans RV-6A.

Flight is using a free-to-play model, letting you hop into the cockpit at no charge but offering content packs at an additional cost. Prices haven't been announced for the packs, but Age of Empires Online -- announced alongside Flight -- charged $20 for premium packs.

Signing into Flight with your Games for Windows Live account will unlock the ability to purchase a Maule M-7-260C utility aircraft, and a North American P-51 Mustang fighter plane.

"There was an overwhelming demand for access to the 'Microsoft Flight' beta and the number of requests was far more than what we initially planned for," said executive producer Joshua Howard in the announcement. "We received amazing feedback from the beta participants and it’s great to see this level of excitement from fans as we move toward the release of Microsoft Flight."

Microsoft has released a Flight webisode to mark the occasion as well.

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  • reply
    February 6, 2012 12:45 PM

    Steve Watts posted a new article, MS Flight coming February 29 with Hawaiian Islands pack.

    Microsoft has announced a release date of February 29 for Microsoft Flight, along with a Hawaiian Adventure Pack that will release day-and-date.

    • reply
      February 6, 2012 12:51 PM

      [deleted]

    • reply
      February 6, 2012 3:20 PM

      I look forward to the landing gear, and autopilot dlc

    • reply
      February 6, 2012 4:13 PM

      I tried the beta for this and it was horrible. I don't know if it was just me but the keyboard input controls had a 1-2 second delay. The mouse was fine, but I don't use the mouse for flying in games. I played it for like 10 minutes and checked all of the options but nothing fixed it so I just gave up.

      • reply
        February 6, 2012 4:14 PM

        You played it without a flightstick?

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          February 6, 2012 4:19 PM

          Back in the day, I used to play Flight Simulator 5 entirely on the keyboard. It limited your reaction time speed, but you could easily takeoff and land the Cessna or Learjet under no-wind or gentle conditions.

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      February 6, 2012 4:16 PM

      This, AOE Online, and the Fable 3 port were supposed to be Microsoft's "proof" of caring about PC games. What do you guys think so far?

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        February 6, 2012 4:23 PM

        Bill Gates? Moar like Bill Hates! u no imrite

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        February 6, 2012 6:42 PM

        I think that the Fable 3 port is proof that they don't care, what with it being several months late and lacking the promised cross-platform multiplayer.

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          February 6, 2012 7:27 PM

          Agreed; it seems like they were just doing this to farm 2 IPs for freemium games, and the Fable 3 port was released so late, to the point where people were saying, "It's been 7 months since the 360 version of Fable 3 was released, and almost nobody's playing it anymore... WHY are you releasing a PC version?"

          Back in September 2010, Dave Luehmann said, "However we are not going to stop there." No announcements made since then, other than these three games that have already been released. Maybe they're holding it for a "Windows 8 app store" announcement; I don't know. They've closed down so many of the old Microsoft-owned studios, what's left to do at this point? Another bad PC port of a Halo game?

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        February 6, 2012 7:33 PM

        I think the PMDG crew says it all: http://forum.avsim.net/topic/358874-some-thoughts-on-flight/

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          February 6, 2012 7:47 PM

          Wow, this is like the PC FPS mods fallout, multiplied by ten. FSX addons are serious business (which is also part of why Microsoft wanted to kill it; they were probably scheming of ways to funnel that through Games for Windows Live). I don't think Microsoft will be able to repair the bridges they burned, but then I don't think they care at this point, seeing how the Flight project devolved so far away from a true aircraft simulator.

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      February 6, 2012 4:45 PM

      Welp. I'm disappointed.

      The beta was ok. The game runs well, looks very pretty, and has a whole fucking ton of regressions in the simulation aspect.

      It's a game more than anything now. Maybe I'll buy it, I'm not sure. I was hoping they would at least add TrackIR support and fix the eyefinity issues. Maybe they final release will, but I won't hold my breath.

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      February 6, 2012 7:35 PM

      [deleted]

    • reply
      February 6, 2012 7:44 PM

      The beta was not very impressive. I don't know any serious flight simmers who are looking forward to this now.

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