Microsoft Flight Simulator 2002 Professional

Flight Simulator 2002, Professional Edition includes a wide variety of aircraft for you to fly--from a new Cessna 172S single-engine trainer and a Caravan floatplane to the Boeing 747-400 jumbo jet. You can splash down in a lake, hover in the Bell 206B JetRanger III helicopter, or practice aerobatics in the Extra 300S. FS 2002 Pro includes 16 aircraft, four more than in the standard edition.

Features exclusive to the professional edition include tools for creating your own planes and buildings, and a multiplayer "instructor's seat" capability. The most dramatic new features common to both editions are the interactive air traffic control system, crowded skies, and auto-generated scenery.

The interactive air traffic control feature adds a new dimension to Flight Simulator. Now you can ask for takeoff clearance, get vectors for an instrument approach, and hear other traffic as you fly. In fact, the "other traffic" is itself a new feature: a new artificial intelligence system generates air traffic around and between airports.

It'll be hard to pay attention to the air traffic, however, as the scenery in FS 2002 Pro is so attractive. As you fly above cities, towns, farmland, and dramatic landscapes, Flight Simulator adds buildings and vegetation appropriate to the terrain below. Office buildings, factories, homes, farmhouses, and trees smoothly blend in on the horizon and fill the entire area with detail that adds unprecedented depth and reality to the game.

Other features include more than 21,000 airports, multiplayer capability, improved weather effects, a moving map and GPS system, in-depth flight analysis, and more.