What is Fly! II?

Fly II is an unlikely candidate for a must-have title — it doesn’t offer any gore or destruction, and you can’t kick the crap out of your friends online. But Fly II will score a big hit with anyone who’s ever had an urge to take to the sky (and who hasn’t?). Lovingly designed aircraft, fenatically detailed scenery, and easily adjustable realism all combine to make this flight simulator an ace.

Fly II ships with a mercifully short manual designed to get anyone into the air in 10 minutes or less. A more-thorough PDF guide covers the basics of flight and the complete controls for all the aircraft, ranging from a single-prop Flyhawk trainer to a Peregrine jet — plus, new to the Fly series, helicopters! Notably absent, however, are Instructions for loading realworld weather data and for accessing and using the built-in Scenery Editor. You can find those pieces of information in a separate read-me file and on the Fly II Web site, respectively.

When it comes to flight simulation, it’s all about visuals and flight modeling — and Fly II delivers. You can manipulate all aspects of the plane (including cockpit noise and the plane’s weight distribution and center of gravity) and most of the physics (such as how realistically the plane reacts to your controls and the weather). You can also change cloud cover and weather and download real-life weather conditions. The visuals are based on actual geographical data and photography, and they’re truly stunning. And the scenery Itself is malleable...

All this beauty and control comes at a cost, however. If you’ve been looking for an excuse to upgrade your video card, this is it. Enabling the high-resolution textures (an option when you start the game) requires a 32MB video card; even with low-res textures, our 16MB Rage Pro 128 strained at screen resolutions above 800 by 600. You also want to give the game as much RAM as possible; our G4’s 384MB was barely enough. This is not a game for an iMac to take lightly.

Many aspects of Fly II are user modifiable. In addition to downloading real-time weather, historical weather, and geographical survey data, with Fly II’s Adventure Scripting you can create scenarios that have specific goals, such as flying your Cessna under the Golden Gate Bridge. Terminal Reality (the sim’s developer) includes detailed skylines for five cities, and users can save and share their own creations.

While all of this will make seasoned pilots feel right at home, this sim may overwhelm the casual armchair aviator. Fly II’s quick-start documentation is good, but unlocking the game’s full potential requires at least a passing familiarity with FAA terminology and regulations — or the willingness to learn. Trust us, it’s worth the effort. Fly II is one of the finest noncombat flight sims available for the Mac or any platform.

Pizor, Rich. (March 2002). Fly II. MacAddict. (pg. 47).

Download Fly! II for Mac

Architecture

IBM PowerPC

Compatibility notes

Emulating this? It could probably run under: SheepShaver