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Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 review - a stunning achievement made even better

It might not have quite the same wow factor second time around, but Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 builds on its astonishing predecessor with intelligence.

Touch down anywhere in the world, set out on foot, and the detail is extraordinary; cool winter light shines through dense forests of alpine trees on sheer snow-covered mountains; bleached rocks and parched flora pepper endless expanses of undulating desert sand; wind-blasted cliffside pathways wind through tawny thickets down to pebbled beaches and gently shimmering water - and provided you stay away from the lumpen photogrammetry of urban sprawls, it all looks so real. It's surprisingly expansive in scope, too, supported by a huge number of engagingly varied mission types, ranging from straightforward half-hour passenger charters to more elaborate activities - crop-dusting, cargo deliveries, thrilling helicopter rescues, and so on - that, with their clearly defined beginning and ends, make Career mode far more conducive to shorter play sessions. Then there are the frequent bugs; I've had flights where my chucks have become permanently welded to my wheels, making taxiing and take-off impossible; passengers moaning about being too high or going too fast, despite the onscreen UI claiming otherwise; landmarks regularly failing to load, and countless instances of controls suddenly refusing to work mid-flight, causing me to plummet inelegantly out of the sky.

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