I’ll start off this short review by saying this: Microsoft Flight is boring. How can flying possibly be this dull? I’m not a fan of flight simulation games to begin with—exposing my bias right here—but I completely fail to see how this slugabed of a game could possibly succeed at capturing anyone’s attention for more than a few minutes. It’s not even realistic. And I’ve flown a plane, for realz. Not that that’s a requirement to realize this fact.

There’s no story in this game. You’re a pilot in Hawaii, flying around over Hawaii, which should be beautiful but in fact it’s disturbingly vapid. The cities are incredibly static: the buildings are stark white and naked, and the streets are completely devoid of life. It’s like every human and every vehicle simply evaporated, like in a Stephen King story or something. Maybe the population is invisible.

The skies are no different. You’ll never see another plane as you fly over yet another strip mall. The jungle environments are pretty, but just as frozen as the cities. Even the volcanos are frozen. This became clear when I directed my plane into a lava-crusted crater, attempting to put my lonely pilot out of his misery. The plane, unfortunately, was indestructible. Maybe the game isn’t set in Hawaii: maybe it’s Purgatory. Certainly feels that way. At least there’s weather in Purgatory, even if it isn’t really dynamic or all that interesting.

The only real semblance of story in the game is the series of pointless fetch quests you’re sent on to prove your flying acumen. One involved me flying a group of people—yes, people—to a burger joint to get some burgers. At first it didn’t make sense to me (why fly to get burgers?), but then I remembered that cars don’t exist in Purgatory. Creepily, I could hear the passengers chattering repetitively about the prospect of burgers in the backseat of my plane, but they were nowhere to be seen, lending credence to my theory that Purgatory not only has no vehicles, but that people who live there are invisible.

The controls are pretty easy to use, although for a game that makes claims to hyperrealism, it seems strange that one can land a complex airborne vehicle using a keyboard and mouse. Not that it matters: if you “crash” your plane, it’ll just bounce around like a rubber toy. Death is impossible.

Microsoft Flight is, in a word, dross. Most insulting is the fact that there is more content for the game, but you must shell out almost fifty dollars to access it. Clearly I am not going to do that if the contents of the original package failed to pique my interest. Microsoft Game Studios have ceased development of the game at this point, which is probably for the best. You can still play it, but the fact that it will never change simply clinches its status as a purgatorial nightmare of a title. According to its trailer, you’ll be able to “Fly Fast, Fly Free,” but just… don’t. Not even for free. Here ends this biased review. Z-Score: 40/100.