'X-Plane Extreme' Lands in App Store
posted by arn on February 3rd, 2009 12:34 AM EST in $9.99, Simulation, iPhone games, iPod touch games
Laminar Research has released their latest flying simulator for the iPhone in the form of X-Plane Extreme [App Store]. The newest version contains "four of the most unusual, fast, maneuverable, or advanced planes ever made" according to the developer. These include:
- F-22 Raptor – by far the most maneuverable and powerful fighter in the sky
- SR-71 Blackbird – the fastest airplane in the world, exceeding Mach-3, exceeding 70,000 feet
- B-1 'Bone' Bomber – this huge ungainly bird still has terribly high stall speeds and limited roll rate due to it's high weight
- B-2 'Jet' Bomber – The B-2 has.. umm… no tail. At all. No vertical stabilizer. No horizontal stabilizer. And no flaps.
Meanwhile, the developer has just released new updates to their other flight simulator applications: X-Plane 9, X-Plane-Helicopter, and X-Plane-Airliner. These latest updates include new instrument panel types, and new flying regions.
App Store Link: X-Plane Extreme, $9.99, X-Plane 9, $9.99, X-Plane-Helicopter, $9.99, X-Plane-Airliner, $9.99
this game looks awesome
It's sad to see more propaganda for the US military-industrial complex.
In the real life these planes kill people and waste taxes. Lots of taxes.
Stop the killing machine!
Definitely getting this, I love the X-plane games. Especially trying to land in the Hudson with no engines on X Plane Airliner!
Isn't X-plane the series which just tries to rip you off?!
Just had a thought. It would be cool to see a fun flight sim for the iPhone in the style of pilotwings. Flying through gates and dropping paint bombs etc would be good, sometimes X-plane get a little too serious.
Personally, I don't think that the x-plane series is a ripoff. I bought X-Plane 9 and loved it even though it only had one scenery area. That was only a month or two ago and since then I've received like 3 free updates including improved instruments, more planes and lots more flight areas. I feel like I've gotten 'way more than my money's worth.
Do I wish that they'd give me a free helicopter or airliner, or maybe some of the scenery from the other games? Sure, but even if I bought ALL of the series I'd still feel like they were very reasonably priced for what you get.
@brewerpaul:
ok we got it, you're one of austins coworker. please stop that lousy propaganda! yeah give us 4 airplanes for 10 bucks, release 10 different apps and so you all get more money. everyone who supports these tactics is a moron!
got it. pretty good. but Austin but in different locations than other x planes same terrtories! this game is changelling compared to the others
damn it. If i can't fly a real bomber or a F22-raptor. Then, this will freakin do!
But, i haven't played X-plane for awhile now and I don't think I'll buy this too. Unless, they include this on the new updates. nice.
Pity you can't shoot. Or engage in a dogfight. It would be pretty cool to be able to realistically dogfight with other aircraft, or fly in formation. Okay, flying in formation would be pretty hard, but if they could pull off 1) Escorting Air Force One 2) Engaging MiGs 3) Bombing runs, then I can safely say that X-Plane is the best app on the app store. If. And it has a long way to go.
How about this. Bought the first 3? Get this on free!
The jets feel slow,even the blackbird. You can't drop bombs on anything…
There isn't anything like radio towers or buildings to match your speed against… Not worth buying, maybe worth playing though if you like flying around in some wasteland void of any life.
really really awesome game!!
the f-22 is incredibly fast!!! it goes up to 900! 1000 sometimes.
also, during take of, theres another plane in front of you!!
so you can chase it and see if you can catch up to it!!!
awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Reald below Austin´s answer to my humble complaint about -2- iPhone apps. Now we got 4. Funny enough I payd for the full version 6,7,8 and 9 and three of the iPhone apps. But now I think it´s enough..
Austin wrote:
x-plane is $50, not $10
i dont owe you everything i can ever do for $10
and there is no room to choose all the scenery and planes and start locations for all the world in the iphone screen anyway
Well the problem with that crappy comment from Austin is that by the time he's done with the iphone… After xplane glider, and xplane experimental, and xplane parachuting, and anything else that he can come up with… the game is gonna be $100 compared to the desktop module which cost $50, includes everything, and lets you import any plane you want to fly. Don't get me wrong I'm a big fan of xplane… but $10 bucks an app is a little ridiculous… but it's also why you don't see them in the top $100 list on appshopper. You would think, especially after the success he had and volume of sales with airliner and helicopter they would at least put it on sale for the first week or two. I guess we'll see what happens now that more and more people are getting frustrated with their sales model. I have the other three… but I'm finally to the point of, "when is it gonna stop?"
I didn't mean to put a dollar sign in front of the top 100 list.
Cool looking game. BTW, in the current air war, there is no dog fighting. The F-22 is able to kill the bad guys without ever seeing them. Airplanes now are primarily platforms to carry the kinetic weapons and the software to do the job. Most fighting is now air to mud to support the ground troops.
And "Foo" – you are just silly.
Yeh, let's have the game with cities to bomb with tactical nuclear weapons. I suppose Mid-Eastern or Russian bloc cities would be okay. Throw in Mexico and China for good measure and maybe even a few cities in Southwestern America. No cities in the Northeast since that's where I live. Might as well add a little taste of reality to this sim. No point in loading up a bomber with nukes and having no place to drop them.
I got to say, some of the comments are pretty amusing about war propaganda. I have to admit that flying away and looking back at a large-yield hydrogen bomb detonating would be kind of thrilling. May I mention where I'd like to drop the first one. No I'd better not.
It's a flying sim, not a killing sim. Let's all be pacifists.
I'm not sure where this "it's propaganda" claim comes from. I don't seem to always agree with Austin on some matters but he definitely has a love of flying and aircraft, and you have to admit that the military is the only one with the money to make such interesting aircraft. X-plane is about flight and the challenge of controlling an aircraft. Part of the appeal is controlling aircraft you would never in your life get a chance to fly.
that being said I don't think I'll buy this for $10. I bought the first for $10 and I can't say I got $10 out of it. Austin adds plenty of complexity but no gameplay. It's not pretty enough to entice me to simply fly around to see the scenery. Muddy blurry hill textures dont make flying that fun and I never get a sense of speed or scale and the chase cam is awful so I cant really appreciate doing stunts. If it drops in price later I may pick it up, but not now.
I agree with Finch. What could be more awesome than flying a "killing machine" at mach 5? Everything else for the rest of your life would be boring.
Finch, it could have been a Concorde, a Zeppelin, an Airbus 380, or something else. But now some bomber plane gets worshipped.
NotYou, one day you may understand that there are many more awesome things than flying a bomber plane. You even may understand that your mind got invaded by the military propaganda so you 'like' these things. Such that a bomber plane gets attached to the word 'awesome' and not to the word 'frightening', which would be more more logical. For you as a tax paper, you should think 'my money stolen' when you think of it.
As a pilot, there are awesome things like flying a sailing plane from north to south europe.
No I'm pretty sure he likes these things because they go mach 5. It's just unfortunate that it's our military that makes them. Pilots might be excited about other planes but for the majority of the population, fighter jets are awesome. I don't think being interested in them means we idolize our military, or that we support their actions. It could be a Russian Mig-35 and it would still be exciting, they are the fastest most maneuverable airplanes in the world. Its unfortunate that the only institution with the money to develop them do so for killing people
As for your options?
Concord – kinda slow in comparison
Zeppelin – kinda boring in comparison
A380 – who cares, its just a big 747, slow un-maneuverable and just plain bland.
I'd personally prefer to fly a Pitt's Special or Spaceship One as my extreme plane of choice, but this is what's available. People think highspeed jets are exciting so Austin is really appealing to the masses here, and I'm sure it will be a good business decision on his part. If X-Plane Extreme only allowed you to fly a sailing plane from northern to southern Europe nobody would buy it.
I finally downloaded it and it's awesome. It's just like the original X-Plane, but FAST. Some jets have different controls depending on their function. Barn storming at 200 mph was fun in X-Plane, but it's WAY more fun at 800 mph.
Finch, roducts idolizing military are very successful. No doubt. Just look at Hollywood. But the trillion dollar war machine is supporting the media, the game designers, etc. to get the support of people to spend that money. But it is about time to stop that and demask it: it kills real people and wastes taxpayer's money.
The 'fastest and most maneuverable' airplanes are just machines to kill. Other than for that purpose nobody needs them. They would not exist.
I guess a Concorde or an A380 is more exciting then a B-1 bomber, where the bomber is not very maneuverable at all. The bomber is just a heavy plane loaded with tons of bombs. You get off the ground, fly long range, get some fuel, drop the bombs and fly back. Does not sound very exciting to me. That's how it was in Iraq, that's how it is in Afghanistan.
If you want to fly a high-speed plane with the simulator, you can design any kind of plane. It is just a piece of software, which can take all kinds of designs. No need to simulate a military plane.
What's with the cheapos complaining about him not including everything for only $10? Each game has different aircraft and regions to fly in. You have to realize, while $10 is expensive for the iPhone, it's *really* cheap for just about everything else. You won't find any full flightsims at the level of this for $10 on DS, PSP, not even XBLA or PS3's PSN.
Oh, and note, this game is more than just a few more planes and areas – Extreme has other planes flying around for you to chase (I don't think you can shoot them down, though)
I can't design my own planes, I know nothing about designing planes, how would I get them onto my iPhone?
Ok the B-1 is completely boring, I never said it wasn't. I guess that means the concord and A380 are the logical next step up the excitement chain coming in at "very boring"
I don't think Austin is funded by the military, I think he's just a dude interested in aircraft technology.
You obviously have a political agenda that you care about way more than I do. You missed that point where I disassociate my interest in fast jets with my support our government killing people. If nobody in the world killed anyone else I'd still be interested in really fast jets. Perhaps we could use them to deliver Kittens to far off places. Things that go fast are interesting, its a fact.
I am now done, you just seem to want to point out how the military is bad, which I already agree with. Besides our taste in airplanes obviously doesn't mesh well anyways. I'm sorry, its over.
Oh, and its "unmask".
Anyone else having trouble controlling aircraft in X-Plane, Airliner and Extreme on their iPod Touch? The "Set Current Phone Tilt As Center" button does not respond to touch (no change as touched). As a result, horrible oversteering on the runway and in the air makes the aircraft difficult to control.
Help!
Sean, no problem for me. Are you sure the “Set Current Phone Tilt As Center” button doesn't update the reference pitch and roll arrows above it?
Foo, whatever you feel about the purpose of military aircraft, the Raptor is simply the most incredible plane to fly. Any pilot (real, or armchair) is going to get a kick out of flying it. You'll be pleased to know that despite requests from various air forces and governments, Laminar are refusing to add combat because they don't want to train people to kill.
foo, imagine this. you live in poland. the year is 1980. the soviets are knocking on you back door, teasing you with their nukes. would you still be against american planes protecting you from total annhiliation. that is what these planes were developed for. they arent "killing machines" designed to bomb innocent children. by saying that our military is just that is spitting in the face of countless service men and woman who are hanging it out there for your freedom.
All this is is a full fledged flight simulator for $10, not something training us to kill.