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I was very impressed and pleased with the documentation that this product comes with. The manual includes installation instructions and many maps of the airports available with this scenery.
Also in the manual are descriptions of the places one can fly. This makes it very helpful to decide where what one wants to see is.
"Amboseli National Park’s clear waters draw many animals, including tourists" it has to say about one of the locations. At first that sounded fine, but when I read it once more I noticed the little misprint in that sentence that gives it a double meaning, =).
But seriously, the manual is very well written and informative.
Installation:
Installation was a breeze. All one has to do is run the setup program from the CD, specify which version of FS one has (95 or 98) and where it is located on the hard disk. The rest will be done by the CD, including setting up FS98 for the new scenery by itself.
Very helpful for lazy users like myself.
The Cessna 208A Caravan:
The scenery comes with a nicely painted Cessna 208A Caravan.
The documentation that comes with this product contains all the information one needs in order to fly this plane correctly.
The plane itself is very fun to fly as it handles very well.
However, it doesn't come with any panel, and what I saw when I loaded it was the default Learjet panel. I know, I can probably find a Cessna 208 panel on the Net, but this is supposed to be a professional product, and in my opinion, should have included a panel for the plane.
The Scenery:
For my first flight, I decided to go animal watching! Since the scenery has such an emphasis on its "Safari" aspect I decided to see what the fuss was about and check it out for myself.
Even though the scenery doesn't come with any situation or adventure
files, it does comes with very informative descriptions of the
various locations included in this package.
I read my way until I reached "Ngorongoro Crater". I stopped here because it was the first description with a picture of animals in it. Ok, "Ngorongoro Crater" it is!
I loaded FS98, chose "Ngorongoro Crater" from the list, and switched to the neat "Safari" (panel-less) Cessna that comes with the scenery. Apparently, the crater has no airstrip so I found myself in the plane on the sand. After a bumpy take off, I was on my way. I saw a lake and the surrounding mountains, which all looked pretty good. Ok, let's look for some animals! Well, it took me a few minutes to actually find what at first seemed like a series of dots. As I got closer I saw what started to look like flat polygoned animals. I buzzed them as close as I could a few times but it still ended up not being as exciting as the real thing might be, I suppose. Actually, adding the animals to the scenery is a nice idea, and Abacus did give it a nice try, but I don't think animals are really FS material. In other words, I don't think it's what the scenery should have been based upon.
After my disappointment from what is supposed to be the highlight of the scenery, I decided to try out the more urban areas. I started off with Alexandria, Egypt. The airport has a few static planes parked at the terminals, and it also has taxiway centerlines and runway signs. I took off and started flying towards the city, which seemed very nice, detailed with cranes, buildings, etc. I found Alexandria to be more than I expected, especially after my "Safari" flight.
Cairo and Cape Town were my next cities, and they looked very well done to me. The textures of the cities and of the surrounding
mountains are very nice, and the airports include modest static planes, buses and catering trucks, which, in spite of not being really extraordinary
do make for a nice atmosphere. Better than deserted airports in any case.
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The scenery covers most of the major cities in Africa, which are done quite well, with nice ground textures, buildings, static planes, taxiway signs etc. Nothing revolutionary, but definitely a nice scenery for anyone who lives in one of these areas, and wants a professionally made scenery of his/her city.
Like I said, don't expect much as far as animals and "Safari touring" is concerned.
Even though this is the main theme of the package, it is not really what prevails in the scenery itself.
Iair Arcavi
