Flight Unlimited is a 1995 aerobatic flight simulation video game developed and published by LookingGlass Technologies. It allows players to pilot reproductions of real-world aircraft and to perform aerobatic maneuvers. They may fly freely, race through floating rings against a timer or take lessons from a virtual flight instructor. The instructor teaches basic and advanced techniques, ranging from rudder turns to maneuvers such as the tailslide, Lomcovák and Immelmann turn.
Flight Unlimited was the first self-published game released by Looking Glass Technologies. It was intended to establish the company as a video game publisher and to compete with flight simulator franchises such as Microsoft Flight Simulator. Project leader Seamus Blackley, a particle physicist and amateur pilot, conceived the game in 1992. He felt that other flight simulators failed to convey the experience of real flight, and he reacted by coding a simulated atmosphere for Flight Unlimited based on real-time computational fluid dynamics. Aerobatic pilot Michael Goulian endorsed the game and assisted the team in making it more true to life.
Flight Unlimited received positive reviews from critics and was a commercial success; its sales exceeded 780,000 copies by 2002. Reviewers lauded its realism, flight instruction, graphics and sense of flight, but some criticized its high system requirements. The game was followed by two sequels: Flight Unlimited II (1997) and Flight Unlimited III (1999). A combat-oriented successor, Flight Combat, was released in 2002 as Jane's Attack Squadron after a series of setbacks. Soon after Flight Unlimiteds completion, Blackley was fired from Looking Glass. He went on to design Jurassic Park: Trespasser at DreamWorks Interactive and later spearhead the Xbox project at Microsoft.
Gameplay
left|thumb|alt=A first-person cockpit view of a simulated airplane; dials and gauges take up the bottom half of the image. The ground and blue sky extend into the distance, and a hill is visible below. Rings of geometric shapes and a wireframe airplane model are in the sky ahead.|Piloting the Extra 300S in the 3-D Cockpit view mode, the player follows a "ghost plane" through a Hoops course above [[Sugarloaf Mountain (Franklin County, Maine)|Sugarloaf, Maine. The flight instruments, which show real-time information about the plane, are displayed on the bottom half of the screen.]]
Flight Unlimited is a three-dimensional (3D) flight simulator video game: its gameplay is a simulation of piloting real-world airplanes. Players may control the Bellanca Decathlon, Extra 300S, Pitts Special S-2B, Sukhoi Su-31 and Grob G103a Twin II sailplane. The game begins at the fixed-base operator (FBO) interface—a traversable 3D room whose contents represent menu options. For example, the player interacts with a row of scale airplane models to select an aircraft, and with a world globe to change airfield locations. Company co-founders Paul Neurath and Ned Lerner wanted to develop an exceptional game in the genre, and Neurath considered the idea during the production of Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss and Ultima Underworld II: Labyrinth of Worlds. In 1992, Seamus Blackley, who had been undertaking graduate studies in particle physics at the Fermilab research facility, was hired through a want advertisement that Lerner had placed on a bulletin board. At the company, Blackley programmed the physics modeling system for a racing game and designed a large number of standalone physics demonstrations. He became fascinated by physics programming. An amateur pilot and flight devotee, Blackley asked Lerner extensive questions about his earlier game Chuck Yeager's Advanced Flight Trainer, which Blackley held in high regard. He wanted the project to bear more resemblance to a playground than to a video game, and he sought to give it simple controls and realistic terrain to decrease the learning curve for beginners. Blackley assumed the role of project leader and then engaged the team in "flaming sessions" to generate ideas.
Production
Blackley's first objective was to code the game's simulated physics. He began by deciding on a programming method—in particular, he sought one that would allow aircraft to perform the "knife-edge spin" maneuver that he had witnessed at air shows. In 1995, he said that he had never played a flight simulator with an accurate sense of flight. Blackley researched physics programming in contemporary flight simulators, and he discovered that many used large databases of wind tunnel and plane sensory equipment information to dictate how aircraft would operate in prerecorded scenarios. The two placed microphones inside the cockpits and next to the engines, Goulian assisted the team during the next year of development: he co-designed the game's flight lessons and advised the team on adjustments to the plane models.
The graphics and physics code increased the game's system requirements, and the team worked to optimize performance during development. At the time, Church said that it was difficult to meld the game's elements, Doug Church later explained that the company wanted to self-publish in order to escape the "treadmill of waiting for advances", which would allow them to make long-term plans without needing to satisfy the immediate demands of a publisher.
Looking Glass intended Flight Unlimited as a gateway into the video game publishing industry. According to Lerner, the idea of self-publishing had been considered when the company was founded. In 1995, Looking Glass projected that sales of Flight Unlimited would increase royalty revenues to $10 million that year, up from $1.5 million in 1994. Jeffrey A. Kalowski, the company's vice president of finance and administration, expected that the game would recoup its development costs and make a return before the end of the year. He predicted that, over the following 12 to 18 months, the company's number of employees would increase from 52 to 82. The company's executive vice president and general manager, Jerry Wolosenko, told The Boston Globe that the company hoped to publish six games each year. Describing the situation, Johnny L. Wilson of Computer Gaming World wrote, "The games that sell big are the ones that allow you to blow stuff up, so, if anything, that could be a problem for Flight Unlimited." Talking to Bernie Yee of PC Gamer US, Paul Neurath said that he thought the game would sell well. Yee noted that Neurath "fully [expected] it to prove more popular than Microsoft Flight Simulator". In March 1995, the Boston Globe reported that the team was performing "11th hour checks" of the game to prepare it for shipment to a Midwestern United States Compact Disc manufacturer. According to the newspaper, Looking Glass planned to begin by shipping 100,000 units to retailers in Canada and the United States. Another 100,000 copies were to be sent to France, Germany and the United Kingdom at a later date.
Reception
Flight Unlimited was a commercial success. It debuted in twelfth place on a June 1995 sales chart compiled by NPD Group, while Microsoft Flight Simulator 5.1 took first place. The game went on to sell more than 300,000 copies by 1997, and more than 780,000 by 2002. and Doug Bailey of The Boston Globe considered it to be the "first real serious challenge to Microsoft's dominance of the genre".-->
The game was a finalist in the 12th Annual Awards for Technical Excellence held by PC Magazine, whose staff called it "the simulator by which all others will be judged." It was named the best simulation of 1995 by Computer Games Strategy Plus (tied with Apache), and the best of 1996 by Macworld, whose editor Steven Levy wrote that it "puts you in touch with what makes flying special." Inside Mac Games and PC Gamer both nominated Flight Unlimited as the simulation of the year, although it lost these awards to A-10 Cuba! and Apache, respectively.
Design
Vizard stated that Flight Unlimiteds "very advanced computational fluid dynamics make [each] plane react according to spec". Noack agreed: he wrote that the game "is about as close to flying within going to the airport". In 1996, Computer Gaming World presented Flight Unlimited with a Special Artistic Achievement Award For Physical Model. The magazine's staff praised Blackley's programming for pushing the genre "higher into the realm of simulation", and listed the game's sophisticated physics model as #5 on its list of "the 15 best ways to die in computer gaming".
Ware found Flight Unlimited approachable and noted its "simplicity of use and depth of instruction". The Washington Posts John Gaudiosi wrote that, while many games in the genre are overly complex, Flight Unlimited lets "those who aren't rocket scientists ... experience the thrills of stunt flying." He found its control scheme simple to understand. By contrast, Bailey found the game difficult and initially "frustrating": he complained that he had to play the lesson mode before even taking off.
A writer for The Washington Post commented that "serious flight freaks will like the racing and advanced maneuvers". Likewise, Ware called the non-violent gameplay "refreshing", Buchanan called Flight Unlimiteds terrain "just superb" and Vizard described it as "amazingly real". Buchanan wrote that the system requirements listed on the back of the game's box "must be a joke", and that a high-performance computer is necessary to run the game. However, a company manager, newly instated by venture capital investors who disliked Looking Glass' management style, instead demanded that Blackley create a direct sequel to Flight Unlimited. The two argued regularly, and Blackley later accused the manager of "ripp[ing] the guts out of Looking Glass". In response to Blackley's refusal to create Flight Unlimited II, the manager fired him.
Constantine Hantzopoulos directed Flight Unlimited II, which was published by Eidos Interactive in 1997. The team could not continue using the real-time computational fluid dynamics of Flight Unlimited because, according to Hantzopoulos, it was "all black box spaghetti code from Seamus". The aerobatics focus of its predecessor was dropped in favor of general civilian aviation. The development of Flight Combat was hinted at during the production of Flight Unlimited II. A third game, Flight Unlimited III, was published by Electronic Arts in 1999; and it continued the focus on general aviation. That year, Flight Combat was officially announced as the World War II-themed, Electronic Arts-published Flight Combat: Thunder Over Europe, but its name was eventually changed to Jane's Attack Squadron. The game was canceled as a consequence of Looking Glass Studios' closure in 2000. However, it was later finished by developer Mad Doc Software and released in 2002 by publisher Xicat Interactive.