review | Microsoft Flight Simulator showcases the power of the new Xbox

In August last year the new version of Microsoft Flight Simulator, A video game that attracted a lot of players with its graphic presentation that allowed them to go anywhere in the world on a plane. Moreover, including real-time weather conditions, providing a new feature to publish simulation of this proposal developed by Asobo and Microsoft Game Studios.

But before its imminent arrival on Microsoft’s new consoles, the question was only one: Can they keep the level in their step toward desktops? How much loss will the deployment in a new environment lose? Can the new machines do that? Would the experience lose anything if we only used the control?

With the cards on the table, the video game has now been moved in a way that ends up, in general, offering the same experience that can already be enjoyed on PC. There is the same plane, gameplay characteristics and even an amazing graphic level to appreciate the digital map animated from above.

The latter is certainly the most impressive, because the big question for the portability was whether the new generation consoles could be up to the task. And after testing on the Xbox Series X, I have to confirm that there is absolutely no waste in the experience. In other words, there is no way to fly over Chiloe Island.

The game runs in the right frames for a captivating display on a 4K TV and its graphic display doesn’t envy much of what I’ve already experienced on a PC with an RTX 3060 graphics card. Even considering it runs on the Xbox Series S at 1080p, it shouldn’t change Total experience in the face of this amazing dirt show.

In this sense, publishing is still as good as the PC version, so you will have no problems appreciating the most famous cities in the world, the most emblematic places and also giving free rein to visit them from the digital air of those sites you already met in your home country. As far as we are concerned, we can navigate in detail the flights from Arica to Magallanes.

As it happened in the PC version, graphical teleportation is a must every time you get close to Earth, since pictorial analogy only performs exceptionally in the most famous places. There is, for example, a new way to discover areas such as Everest, New York or Rio de Janeiro.

That’s where Flight Simulator brings out its best cover letter: a video game that can take you to places you’ve never seen or even been. The following photos were taken while flying over the Statue of Liberty, Christ the Redeemer, and the Pyramids. On TV, everything looks much better.

On the other hand, you must remain clear that on more than one occasion you will find stadiums that do not look good or buildings that are not an exact replica of your city. For example, here are popular places in Santiago and Arica that don’t look as good as they should. I wish Jungle Park was a forest like that.

But even with these details, the experience of traveling in every kilometer of maps becomes a great thing when you are at a higher altitude. In fact, the flight around every corner provides a great simulation that I enjoyed from my first console flight, which was from behind the mountain towards central Santiago.

The rest stays the same in the PC experience, including the same menus, game modes, and graphic winks for tips. There is a huge selection of tutorials to feed yourself the necessary concepts, get used to the controls and achieve not only take-off, but also landing correctly.

But the big problem is that since its inception, everything in Microsoft Flight Simulator is designed to be enjoyed with a mouse and keyboard. There are elements and ways of working that lead you to repeat what you have to do with your mouse with a control. But despite the fact that the console is able to add appropriate accessories, the fact is that something is inevitably lost with the transfer.

Since there is an obvious way the game is lost if you only use a joystick, the game version becomes a smaller brother than what the PC actually offers. Although the control experience doesn’t feel quite rustic on smaller aircraft, it still tends to be a constant use of only the simplest of controls.

So trying to control every detail of the machine, especially the big commercial planes, becomes an overwhelming experience that I don’t personally like at all, as I must admit that even the game on PC didn’t appeal to me for that factor.

The good thing is that this console version is not intended for more experienced gamers, as that is the purpose of the PC experience. Because of this, this console adaptation doesn’t lose ground in what’s most important: delivering a flight simulator that remains impressive when seen and experienced. Even if it is with a control.

Microsoft Flight Simulator will be available from July 27. If you have a Game Pass, this is another title that you can enjoy at no additional cost if you already have this subscription.