Aerosoft's VFR Germany North
By Kevin Glover
26 August 2008
Aerosoft's VFR Germany is really something that GA flyers will enjoy. Based upon the beautiful country of Germany and built from photoreal textures, how could it fail to impress? Using new technology, Aerosoft has made some really incredible progress for making very large scenery products like this better.
First Impressions
In truth, there can be absolutely no first impression other than the size of this add-on! It downloads in twelve parts, each about one gig. The installation size is fifteen gigs. As usual, the installer created a group in the start menu with the uninstaller and manual. My last experience with a payware photoreal product didn't go that well, so I had high hopes that this package would be quite a bit better. I think I can say quite easily that it was. I guess no photoreal package will entirely meet my expectations, and if it did, it would take up my entire hard drive. However, I think VFR Germany is as close as I'll come to that detailed of scenery. It looks great from around 2,000 feet, but I wouldn't fly much lower than 1,000 feet.
As I said earlier, entirely new technologies have been used in the making of VFR Germany. One thing new in this package is how well the autogen are placed. There are quite literally millions of objects throughout the package. While it's true that they may not be right on the mark, they are still extremely close. Of course, the autogen itself is amazing. I've never been to Germany, but from the pictures that I've seen, I think these houses and trees are right on the mark. A lot of the houses are smaller, and quite quaint. Of course, you'd find these houses out more in rural areas, with the newer and larger buildings being in the city. I did notice one unfortunate thing in the scenery; when I turned my autogen up higher, some of the buildings had the textures of the sides as roofs. You know the triangular space inside of a gable? That's what is used for roof textures. The buildings that this affected were generally found in the city and were sort of drab, midsized office buildings. Anyway, as the screen shots on their site show, the placement of autogen, and particularly large custom objects, is exemplary for a package quite this large.
The custom objects beg a description; they really are marvelous. What stood out to me most were the churches. Most of them were simply marvelous Gothic style stone structures. There were quite a few of them, and I'm not sure if the number was realistic or not. There is an excellent selection of custom buildings throughout, ranging from factories to asphalt refineries. They are all very detailed, and that showed because the textures took awhile to load. It wasn't a problem, but it shows you that they're good.
Aerosoft extended the detail even to the water. Throughout most of the water, you'll find some excellent water masks. Generally, they depict underwater reefs, sand banks, and the like. They add a lot to the game, especially on the coast and larger rivers. The water masks extend about a quarter of a mile out from the shore, but this varies.
In a scenery as big as this, there are remarkably few bugs. However, the one I noticed most was that some of the water masks left boats and stuff in the water; in the game, this shows up as shaped white patches on the blue. This can be a bit detrimental to the aesthetics of the add-on, particularly in harbors and smaller rivers. Additionally, there are only summer textures. Complain if you want, but after all, if all the other seasons were included the package would be about 60 gigs in size. Personally, I wouldn't even bother with a package that big.
Final Word
Quite simply put, I haven't had a lot of experience with photoreal add-on; they just aren't my style. However, Aerosoft's VFR Germany North has given me a better opinion of this type of add-on, and I think you will find this scenery ranking among the best photoreal add-on you have. There are some faults to the package, but none impacted me greatly. Germany is a beautiful region, and Aerosoft portrayed both the human element of building, architecture and the like, with the sheer beauty of nature. I got a lot of pleasure flying this area and I think you will too.
Kevin Glover
kevin.glover@hotmail.com
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