Have you ever dreamed of being a pilot? Then this is the review for you, and we can all thank Laminar Research, the team who brought the next level of flight simulation to our screens with their latest installment into the X-Plane series. X-Plane 12. The updates in this title from previous titles are remarkable, to say the least.

X-Plane 12 is an awesome title, and even at launch, you have 23 planes sitting there ready to fly, taking off at any airport you can think of. There is plenty to do from the start. When you start the game for the first time, you are greeted with a tutorial to teach you the basics of the title and show you how to get the wheels off the ground and into the air.

Anyone that has played a flight simulation title will agree that a keyboard and mouse is not the most ideal controller scheme for a flight simulation journey, but for those who don’t have all the latest hardware with flight yokes or joysticks, the keyboard and mouse still work great. It took me a little while to get used to moving the plane around with the mouse whilst in the air, and the keyboard whilst on the ground.

Overall, it was the most pleasant experience I’ve had on a flight simulator using a keyboard and mouse. The cockpits were all virtual, so if you knew what you were doing, you could flick the switch and move the knobs, but I’m not a pilot. I had no idea what they all did and ended up killing the engines in the air… Whoops.

The graphics looked absolutely stunning with the realism in the aircraft models and even when sitting inside the cockpit, or when doing those pre-flight checks before crashing into the ocean because you are not destined to be a pilot. The lighting and environments that you can fly around are something else. With how beautiful it looks, it makes you not want to look out the window and see the real world.

The instruments, with how they worked and lit up during nighttime, were stunning to look at, and I’ll forever take my hat off to pilots for flying at night because there is not much but darkness and some moonlight. The cities you fly over and the land you get to see have come such a long way in gaming and the developers have not missed out on the beautiful features built into this title. There is some room for improvement in the realism and detail of some cities, most importantly where I live in Toowoomba, as it was a little lacking, but most major cities are beautifully detailed.

Flight simulation titles really need some high-quality audio, and it’s something that needs to be done correctly or it’s one of the biggest downfalls, and the developers have done a fantastic job with this one. Everything from the sounds that the aircraft makes, the sounds inside the cabin, or the aircraft to asking ATC “Air Traffic Control” for permission to take off or land was done perfectly. I could not help but notice that the ATC, depending on where you were flying from, had different accents depending on the country.

There were some sounds, like the beeping inside the Airbus A330, telling me to pull up whilst I was nose-diving, and while these were annoying, they are a feature needed inside an aircraft, and we are playing a simulation, so there are no complaints from the sounds. One more notable thing with ATC is that if you are in the middle of the ocean, I wish you good luck finding someone to reply to you.

X-Plane 12 is the perfect flight simulation title for someone that loves sitting around, flying some awesome planes, and killing some time. I’ve done a full flight from Sydney to Townsville, which was some good fun whilst aboard the Airbus 737-800. I would recommend this to anyone that is a keen flyer and loves aircraft.

Written by: Hayden Nelson