Flight Unlimited II

Description

Flight Unlimited II is a flight simulator video game that was released in 1997 and created by Looking Glass Studios. Eidos Interactive was the game's publisher. Within the airspace of the San Francisco Bay Area, which is shared with up to 600 artificially intelligent aircraft and directed by real-time air traffic management, the player pilots one of five different planes. The game focuses on normal civilian aviation rather than the aerial acrobatics that were the primary focus of its predecessor, Flight Unlimited. As a result of this, a new physics code and an engine were constructed. The former was necessary due to the fact that Seamus Blackley, the programmer who had been responsible for Flight Unlimited's computational fluid dynamics system, had departed the firm.

The development team's goals were to compete with the Microsoft Flight Simulator series and to create an immersive setting for the game's protagonist, the player. In the marketplace, Flight Unlimited II was successful to the point where it was able to return its initial investment. The game received accolades from reviewers for its aesthetics, its ability to replicate airspace, and, to a lesser extent, its physics. On the other hand, there were others who thought the game was not as good as Microsoft Flight Simulator 98. After finishing work on Flight Unlimited II, the crew that had been working on it split off to simultaneously develop Flight Unlimited III (1999) and Flight Combat (which would ultimately become Jane's Attack Squadron). Both initiatives ran into difficulties, which was a contributing factor in Looking Glass closing its doors in May of 2000.

The video game Flight Unlimited II is a flight simulator, which means that its gameplay is a simulation of controlling actual planes in the real world. The Piper PA-28R-200, the de Havilland Canada DHC-2 Beaver, the Beechcraft Baron 58, the North American P-51D Mustang, or the Cessna 172 are the aircraft that players can pilot. Each aircraft has an interactive cockpit that is modeled after its equivalent in the real world. These cockpits have simulated flying instruments such as airspeed indicators, heading indicators, and VOR indicators, amongst other simulated flight instruments. The first thing the player does is either take off on a Quick Flight or access the interface for the fixed-base operator (FBO). Before taking off on a Quick Flight, the player chooses an aircraft and the weather conditions for the flight; the FBO interface includes other options such as lessons, flight plans, and adventures. The game's six lessons provide in-depth instruction on a variety of operations, including takeoffs and taxiing. The objectives of an adventure may include things like landing on an aircraft carrier, assisting a prisoner in escaping from Alcatraz Island, or dropping turkeys into Candlestick Park. Adventures are pre-built missions. In total, there are twenty-five different adventures.

A simulation of 11,000 square miles of the San Francisco Bay Area serves as the backdrop for the action in this game. The player has the option of landing at any of the 46 airports in the area or taking off from any of them. Conditions of the atmosphere, including drizzle, wind, and fog, are recreated artificially. There are up to 600 AI planes in the game's airspace, and they fly about and reply to the player in real time. Players share the airspace with these AI planes. Real-time air traffic control, sometimes known as ATC, is responsible for directing both the player and the AI planes to avoid collisions. Constructing radio communications with the use of a menu allows the player to engage in conversation with both the ATC and other pilots. There are three different cockpit views that can be selected: IFR, which stands for "instrument flight rules," enables the player to monitor and interact with all flight instruments; VFR, which stands for "visual flight rules," has a larger windshield area but fewer flight instruments; and Virtual Cockpit View, which enables free look but does not include any interactive flight instruments. There are also options for external camera perspectives, and the player has the ability to ride as a passenger in any of the AI planes.

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